 fish, part 2
posted by Christopher on 9.26.2004 - 7:59 pm
well.. the first run was kind of a disaster. we learned everything that you should NOT do when keeping fish firsthand. only one poor fish was killed in the process, but now we're set back up and it's going a lot better.
first off, contrary to popular belief, platies do not make good first fish in a new tank. plecostomus make even worse new tank fish.
then there's this thing called the "nitrogen cycle" that you *seriously* have to take into account. it has to do with the amount of waste in the water (which means TOXICITY for fish, by the way). cycling a tank takes months - not days. you need to keep a few hardy fish which hopefully will last through the whole cycle.
also, fish shouldn't get sick. if they do, it's probably because they came like that from the store, or your water quality is bad (see 'nitrogen cycle'). if they do get sick, antibiotics tend to do more harm than good (i.e. kill the good bacteria that dissolves ammonia, nitrites and nitrates).
anyone who tells you that you can't overfeed fish hasn't had fish before. the problem we encountered wasn't that the fish necessarily overate (platies tend not to), it's that what they DIDN'T eat either rotted or clogged the filter (or both).
anyway, we now have four dwarf rainbow fish, which are loving it in the tank. we feed them a *tiny* pinch of food a few times a day, and we're not going to introduce any more fish into the mix until our new (and accurate) water testing kit tells us that the tank has stabilized.
it's certainly been a rollercoaster learning experience, but now that we're armed with all kinds of good knowledge, fishkeeping is actually kind of a fun hobby.
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 News from across the pond --
posted by Dante on 9.28.2004 - 11:10 am
Well, more than a week of our multi-cultural excursion is finished. I'm not anxious to get back yet, but I felt it necessary to check in here.
So far its been a few days in London, a week in Paris, and now this is being written from Brussels. I feel so worldly. Don't expect me to come back with a beret, chocolates, and battered fish ... but expect me to come back rejuvenated and full of terrible new ideas.
More stories will come next week. I'll be back on the proper side of the 'pond' and I won't be paying per minute to try to craft a proper news post. I hope Chris is treating everyone here well in my absence.
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